A recent family vacation reinforced for me that not only is it important to organize your travel plans, your clothing and toiletries, your international adapters, and your itinerary, but that it is also essential to invest in travel insurance, be flexible, and have a back-up plan.

Halfway through our vacation to Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg and Prague, my younger daughter got very sick. She spent two days curled up in her hotel bed in Vienna, unable to participate in any activities. By the time we arrived in Salzburg, the next city on our itinerary, she could barely stand upright. A visit to a local doctor led to an ER visit, which led to hospital admission and a 2 ½ day hospital stay.

In the hospital in Salzburg

As a result, we had to cancel four scheduled tours, we had to spend an extra night in Salzburg (necessitating the cost of an extra night at the hotel) and, because we notified the hotel in Prague too late (since we didn’t know whether or not the hospital was going to release her), we had to pay for an extra night of hotel that we didn’t use.

Here’s where organization pays off. Our very organized itinerary and travel documents summary made it easy to contact the various hotels, speak with the tour company coordinator to arrange to cancel tours, and change the transportation from one city to the next. Having the travel insurance policy number and contact information made dealing with the hospital administrator seamless.

Having a child in the hospital is always scary. Having a child in a hospital in a foreign country where they want to operate, and you don’t speak the language (my German is limited to “gesundheit”) is terrifying. Thankfully, because we were organized and had arranged for travel insurance, we didn’t have the added burden of worrying about how we were going to pay for all these unexpected expenses. And, we were grateful that she was finally released and we got to enjoy the last day of our vacation together.

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